


Something Fishy

by dovingbird



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Aromantic!Danny, Asexual!Holly, Blowjobs, Deepthroating, Homosexual!Ross, M/M, Mermaid Fetish, Ross and Holly are happily married and Holly is his greatest wingman, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A filled commission. Look, Ross is happily and deeply in glorious romantic love with his wife, Holly, but it doesn't change the fact that otherwise he's a big gay baby. We're not even gonna talk about the fact that he has this huge crush on Danny because, really, who doesn't?</p>
<p>The thing is that, look, all Holly wants is for her husband to be happy, and if that means playing secret agent and finding out exactly what Danny's into - as different as those things might be - so she can get her hubby the hook-up, she's gonna do it, and nothing's gonna stop her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Fishy

**Author's Note:**

> This was an extremely generous commission essentially for Danny with a mermaid fetish, and I decided to have a little fun with the characters and their romantic/sexual orientations all along the way. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> TW for a slur or two and a lot of ableism in dialogue.

“Can I ask you a random question?”  
  
Holly looks up from where she's painting the helmet for her next cosplay. The way she eyes Ross is enough to make him smirk and wiggle a little where he sits on the other end of the table. “When has that ever _once_ stopped you before?”  
  
He chuckles, even kicks his feet for a moment. “You've got a paintbrush in your hand,” he points out. “If you get mad, my shirt's suddenly gonna be a whole different color.”  
  
“Can't have that, can we?”  
  
“Fuck no.” He pulls at his shirt so he can see it better when he looks down. “The TARDIS has to stay blue.”  
  
“I'll keep that in mind the next time I have to threaten you,” she says dryly. She goes back to painting, though turns her body a bit more to face him, her subconscious sign that she's listening closely. “C'mon, shoot.”  
  
He takes a few seconds, weighing each thought against each other, before he realizes he'll never get to the right conclusion without her help anyway, that being tactful is something he sucks at and it's never worked for him in the past. “Do you ever regret marrying me?”  
  
The paintbrush comes to a dead stop, though she doesn't look up.  
  
“Like...do I make you miss things you otherwise might've been able to do? And do you ever hate me for it?”  
  
Holly finally meets his eyes, brow wrinkled. “...no?”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Ross, of _course_ I'm sure. Where the hell's that even coming from?”  
  
“Oh, you know. Just something random.”  
  
When she sets the paintbrush aside he figures he should settle in for a long talk. “Ross, that's not random. 'How many dicks do you have to such in zero gravity before the jizz you swallow makes a perfect circle in your stomach,' _that's_ random. What you just asked is really leading and...” He can see the moment it settles fully on her. “...and you feel like you're missing things, don't you?”  
  
“...I don't know.”  
  
“You _do_ know. C'mon.” His one saving grace is that she doesn't sound angry. Just maybe a little hesitant about how to approach everything. She hops up and sits next to him on the table, scoots close enough for her to lace their fingers together, and he's more than happy to go with the handholding. “What's on your mind? Spill.”  
  
He shakes his head. “It's not even important, Holls, I-I don't even know why I asked.”  
  
“It's important enough that you've been thinking about it.”  
  
“But it's not even that! I love you, you know that, I love the shit out of you, but it's just-”  
  
“I don't have a dick.”  
  
Ross barks a laugh, leans until he's buried his face in her shoulder. “That...might be a part of it.”  
  
He's tentative to bring this up only a couple of years in, when the honeymoon phase should still be going strong. He doesn't want Arin saying he told him so.  
  
Holly slowly cards her fingers through his hair, sending little soothing shivers through his limbs. “...we both knew this was gonna come up one day.”  
  
He blinks. “That what would come up?”  
  
“The fact that you'd start...wondering if things would've gone differently if you hadn't decided you wanted a whole partnership thing with me.”  
  
Ross looks up at her, eyes still a little wide.  
  
Holly rolls her own eyes. “Ross, I'm pretty sure you're sitting here thinking about sex and wanting to have it, so-”  
  
“But it's...” He groans and hides against her skin again. “Fuck, that's the thing, I hoped it wouldn't ever come up.”  
  
She's quiet for a moment before the gentle motion of her fingers through his hair starts again. “You're not like me, Ross.”  
  
“...is it bad that I wish I was?”  
  
“Not bad. Just maybe a little unrealistic.”  
  
He sighs. “Well, that's not too far from how I usually do shit, is it?”  
  
“Too true.”  
  
It never stops amazing him, the fact that she's his safety blanket. She has been for years, and he doubts it'll ever stop. He trusts her with his life, can legitimately see himself growing old with her in so many ways, but there's the fact that...it's true. It _does_ feel a little like something's missing, and that pisses him off like nothing else.  
  
“I told you to spill. You gonna hold out on me?”  
  
“I just...I don't really know how to talk about it.”  
  
“It has to be _something_ relating to what allosexuals go through,” she drawls, “so all I can assume is that you wanna jump somebody's bones.”  
  
“Shut up,” he whines. “You're mean.”  
  
“Accurate.” Holly laughs, the unbelievable jerk that she is, and she makes a mournful sound in response even though he knows she's immune to them. “C'mon, sweetie.” Her voice is softer now, more sympathetic. “Look, I know I might not be able to relate, exactly, but hey, this is why you married me, right? Because I can listen and you can trust me and you know I'm never gonna judge you?”  
  
“And taxes.”  
  
“And your green card.”  
  
“I hate you.” It doesn't matter that they can laugh together, that they can have this...incredibly strong bond that they have, he's still been trained not to talk about what's on his mind with his partner. Never mind that he doesn't want to sleep with her, that they're not even sexually attracted to each other. She's still the one who proposed a lifetime partnership, and he's still the one who agreed. “I...I don't want out, Holly.”  
  
“But?”  
  
“But...” He can't say it. He can't even shape the words with his mouth.  
  
“...you have a crush, don't you.”  
  
Fuck.  
  
He doesn't really consciously mean to make the slightly whining noise again, but he does, and she snorts. “It's a total crock of shit, it's totally not even a thing,” he tries.  
  
“Why don't I believe you, exactly?”  
  
“'Cuz...I'm a terrible liar?”  
  
“That's probably it.”  
  
“Ugh.” He can just about taste the bitterness in his mouth. “Do I have to tell you right out? Really?”  
  
She makes a soft, contemplative hum. “Would it be easier if I guessed?”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Twenty Questions, then?”  
  
“You'll get it in five.”  
  
“Ooh...bet you next week's laundry I get it in three.”  
  
“You're on.” He looks up at her with a grin.  
  
“Married?”  
  
“Nope, two more.”  
  
“Puerto-Rican?”  
  
He laughs again. “Ray was two months ago, thank you very much.”  
  
“And you didn't tap that?!”  
  
“Holly, he's straight as a fucking arrow!”  
  
“But you're adorable!”  
  
Ross just settles back on her shoulder, rolling his eyes. “Trust me. I'm not his type. Besides, he's got Tina. Hey, you've got one more question.”  
  
“I don't need it. Dan.”  
  
Silence. Complete silence. And then the one thought he can manage. “Shut up.”  
  
She grins and he hates it, immediately pulls away from her as he feels himself start to pout in response. “I knew it.”  
  
“You're wrong!”  
  
“I'm _so_ not wrong.”  
  
“Oh, and how do you know that, huh?”  
  
“Because you, Mr. Ross, talk in your sleep.”  
  
Just like that his cheeks are beet red, flushed deeper than they ever have in years. There's that instinctual clench of his abdominal muscles, the flash of phantom laughter in his ears and the feel of too many eyes on him. “Shit, seriously?”  
  
“Nah.” And she chuckles and he grinds his teeth, turns to glare at her. “Nah, I just know you way too well after all these years.”  
  
“You. Are so. Mean.”  
  
“I'm right, aren't I?”  
  
“Of _course_ you're right, you're _always_ right, aren't you?” He shoves off the table, even throws his arms up in the air in response. “Silly of me to think I can hide anything but a long distance crush from you, huh?”  
  
“Such a drama queen,” she teases, and ninety percent of the time he can take it or shrug it off or maybe even dish it out right back, but he feels a little raw right now and that means his defenses are skyrocketing. But Holly knows him. She softens, he can tell, but when she comes off the table he turns away, pretends to study a figurine that she painted, one he's seen a million times. “...look, you...treat him a certain way, okay?”  
  
He scoffs. “Like what?”  
  
“Like he's...” There's a long moment, long enough for him to get fidgety. “...someone you wanna impress, but also somebody you don't wanna notice you at all. Like you want him to think well of you, but you also maybe know you screw a lot of stuff up so you want to be invisible as long as you can.”  
  
Her words sit heavily on his stomach, so he pushes out a laugh. “That's dumb.”  
  
“It's not like with Arin, you know? Arin's your best friend, yeah, but if I remember right you've never exactly been attracted to him?”  
  
Never really, no. No more than 'Hey we're both boys and I'm full of teenage hormones and I'm horny as dicks literally all the time.' He picks up the figurine, spins it between his hands as carefully as he can manage when he's full of prickling uncomfortable energy and wants nothing more than to leave the room and maybe scream for a few hours for good measure. “Yeah, but it could also be Barry-”  
  
“Barry's a cute little muffin, but he's not your type, Ross. You need explosive energy and so much outgoing nature, and he's just...Barry's soft. And you like soft, but not that much.” Holly keeps her distance, and under all his bravado and frustration he's super thankful for it, already feels a little of the tension slipping out of his body. “You want soft like some malleable metal or something, not like a cotton ball.”  
  
It's a silly simile, but shit like that always helps Ross's brain figure stuff out easier anyway. Always has, always will. “...how the hell do you know so much about me?”  
  
This time when she approaches and drapes her arms around him from behind he leans into her, lets the safety and the warmth break down the rest of his tension. “Because I love you, you dope.” She kisses his cheek and he smiles instinctively, gently nuzzles their cheeks together. “You wanna talk about Danny for a little while?”  
  
He laces one of their hands together, cups her forearm with the other. “He's just...fuck, Holly, you know how he is.”  
  
She nods against his head, presses another few kisses over his hair – she knows it makes him almost explode with comfort when she does that. “He's a magnetic sort of guy.”  
  
“And he cares, and he's sweet, and he's...really really hot when he smiles and shit? And I sort of really wanna fuck him?”  
  
Holly laughs. “I'm not surprised, since half the Internet seems to want to too.”  
  
“God, why do I even have a Tumblr,” he mutters. “The things I've seen.”  
  
“God save us both.” She loosens her arms a little, no doubt testing if he's ready for her to let go, and he lifts his own grip, lets her escape just before he takes her hand again and leads her behind him all the way to the bedroom, where he flops down and waits for her to come spoon up behind him. “How long have you wanted to fuck his brains out?”  
  
“Oh Jesus.” He chuckles, shakes his head. “Like a year. Like, remember way back when, when Arin asked Danny to Grump or whatever, and you, me, him, Arin, and Suzy all went out for ice cream? And Arin did the thing after we got our cones where he said Danny needed to write some NSP song with Brian that was filled with gross food metaphors for sex or something, and Danny started licking his cone really suggestively or whatever just to gross Arin out?”  
  
“Eww.” He feels Holly shudder behind him, and he laughs again. “Okay, go on.”  
  
Bless her. She might not get the appeal, but she never tries to shut him up, not unless it's literally too much for her to take. “I just...really started thinking about it then, and-”  
  
“And ever since then you've lived in Bonerville?”  
  
“Preeeetty much.”  
  
They lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and each other's company. They're both a little addicted to cuddling – it's one of the few times that Ross can calm his body down, can make his limbs stop kicking and his mind stop buzzing, and he's pretty sure that if he could just cuddle Holly literally all the time he'd never even have to take any meds to keep himself chilled out.  
  
For once, Holly is the one to break the silence. “You should ask if he wants to bang.”  
  
Ross immediately bursts out laughing because it's such a fucking stupid idea on so many levels that it's absurd to even think about. “Oh, that'd go fucking well.”  
  
“Why wouldn't it?” She cocks her head up over his shoulder, eyebrows wrinkled, and she's so goddamn cute it almost causes him physical pain. “You're adorable, you're both probably horny as anything, you guys know and trust each other-”  
  
“And, once again, Holly, probably straight as an arrow.”  
  
“Oh, like you know that for sure.”  
  
“Tell me, have you ever _met_ Danny?”  
  
“What, the Danny that's never had a steady girlfriend since you met him?”  
  
“Neither has Barry!”  
  
“That's because Barry's married to his laptop, and we both know it. You think one ace can't recognize another, huh?” Holly rests her chin on his arm. “Aren't you supposed to have like gaydar or something built into you?”  
  
“Okay, hold up.” He sits up and Holly falls back on her pillow, blinks up at him again. “Just because I'm a fucking flaming homo doesn't mean I can do that, no, I'm not really that cool, okay, and just because Danny doesn't bring girls over for us to meet and approve of doesn't mean that he's not fucking some girls he meets in a club every once and a while on the side-”  
  
“Uh, whatever, pretty sure Danny's _incapable_ of fucking somebody he doesn't know well-”  
  
“Holly-”  
  
“-and just the idea of Old Man Danny in a club is impossible for even _me_ to imagine.”  
  
“ _Holly._ ”  
  
“What.”  
  
“It's not gonna happen.” He holds her eyes as he says it as firmly as he can manage. “There's pretty much a one percent chance that Danny's into dicks. And even if he is, it's not my dick he'd be sucking.”  
  
She narrows her eyes shrewdly. “You think he'd be beating off Arin?”  
  
“Pretty sure it'd be Barry, actually.”  
  
She considers. “...well. He never _does_ say anything that makes him sound repulsed, that's true.”  
  
“Anyway, can we just stop talking about it? Can we just like...lay here and take a nap or something so I can wake up and pretend this conversation never happened?”  
  
“Or...” Holly tugs him back down into proper spooning position, kisses the back of his neck right at the top of his spine. “...you can trust your nosy wife to make you very happy.”  
  
He quirks a brow. “...what the hell does _that_ mean?”  
  
“It means maybe I can play some games and get some info about your little crush's sexual interests...”  
  
“Don't you dare.” He turns his head, tries to see her out of the corner of his eye. “Danny's not stupid. If he figures out what you're doing-”  
  
“He's not gonna break off a friendship or anything with you, c'mon.” She lets her fingers tickle through his hair again. “He loves you to death. You and me both know that. Besides, I'm discreet.”  
  
He stares at her.  
  
“Just a little probing. Nothing big.”  
  
He shakes his head. “Don't screw it up, please, I'm serious.”  
  
“Ross. When have I ever screwed anything up for you?”  
  
She's got a point, actually.  
  
She presses a soft, chaste kiss to his lips and smiles before ducking back down, nuzzling into his back. “Trust me. It may be a one percent chance...but that's more than nothing, isn't it?”  
  
And that's the thing. He does. He trusts her with everything.  
  
As they start to drift into a lazy afternoon nap, all he can see is the possibility that she might somehow be right.  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Dinner. That was apparently the dastardly plan: inviting everybody over and forcing Ross to do actual work while Holly pulled the recon thing. If he'd known about that, maybe he'd have done this himself, but no, he's stuck trying to cook something a little more sophisticated than mac and cheese and failing miserably.  
  
He wants to question her about it, honestly, maybe whine a little, but while he's struggling with spaghetti she explains it.  
  
“Tell me what tonight is, Ross.”  
  
“Tuesday?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “Sweet husband of mine, you are just...okay. What _else_ is tonight?”  
  
He's lost. He blinks at her.  
  
“Arin and Suzy's first wedding anniversary.”  
  
He blinks a few more times. “Wait, you knew that? And you invited everybody out here anyway?”  
  
“Strategy.” She smoothly steps in, kisses his cheek as she takes over the pasta. “Danny and Barry'll be here, and that's it. You distract Barry, I'll figure out everything you need to know from Dan.”  
  
She makes it sound so damn easy. Ross laughs, shakes his head and looks away. “You wanna put money on it?”  
  
“On what?”  
  
“That he's straight.”  
  
Holly grins. “You're that sure?”  
  
“He wouldn't touch a cock even if there wasn't a vagina left on earth.”  
  
“Right.” She leans into the counter next to him, grin slowly shifting to a smirk. “Let's not do money. I say I can get Danny to have some kind of sex with you within a month – handjobs, beej, something. If I'm wrong, I'll do all the laundry for a month. If I'm right, you do all the dishes for a month. Deal?”  
  
Hard bargain. He hates washing dishes more than pretty much anything else in the world. But if there's anything he's ever learned, it's not to hope for things that are impossible to change, so he sticks out his hand. “Deal.”  
  
Holly shakes it firmly, and then they're back off to the races of getting things together.  
  
When Danny and Barry arrive Danny's the one who looks like he just rolled out of bed and Barry's the one who at least had the forethought to bring a dessert, even if the cake is frozen and storebought. Ross assumes this is what's supposed to be done, at least – he and Holly have never really had one of those official friend dinner party things in their home before – and Holly seems pretty pleased, immediately hurries it off to the fridge and waves over her shoulder a bit, telling Ross to keep the two of them entertained while she finishes everything up.  
  
Honestly? It's not that scary of a prospect. Danny and Barry are notoriously easy to keep occupied. Hell, they all are – throw a controller at them and a game and things are pretty tidily cleaned up. What's a little nervewracking is that he and Holly didn't exactly establish a plan beyond this. He ends up tucked in the gaming room with them playing Castle Crashers and fidgeting so badly that he ends up sucking massive amounts of balls at the game, and that's frustrating enough, knowing he's goddamn good at this game and ruining it anyway.  
  
He's so pissed and anxious that he ends up tossing his controller away when his phone suddenly vibrates in his tiny pocket, and he fishes it out with a huff, trying his best to ignore Danny's little musical laugh and Barry's extremely terrible trash-talking as he reads the text.  
  
It's from Holly, of course. _'You're so bad at this.'_  
  
He grinds his teeth a bit, tries to get the general idea across by pounding his thumbs so hard on the screen it should probably break. _'fuck you idek what to do'_  
  
 _'That's because you're a big baby. Tell Danny I need some help or something.'_  
  
That idea's pretty much bullshit, but he thuds his head back on the couch and huffs anyway. “Dan.”  
  
“Yeah, Ross?” Danny immediately looks over from the TV, cocks a brow when their eyes meet.  
  
“Do me a favor, Holly just texted me and said she needs help in the kitchen.”  
  
He scoffs, grins at him and shakes his head. “And why the hell can't you do it?”  
  
“Because, you dick, I'm super fucking lazy, and I've been working hard all day getting the house clean for you guys or whatever, and you've probably just slept all day, so-” He can hear his voice starting to curve a little bit, picking up his accent from home, but he doesn't take a breath until he realizes that his hand's tightening around his phone enough to hurt him. “-that means you should be a nice guy and go help her instead.”  
  
“Fuck you!” Danny says in response, the grin somehow widening even more until his eyes are doing that twinkling thing that always makes Ross's mouth go a little dry. “Like I'm gonna go do your work for you! You married her, man, you walked right into these chores and shit.”  
  
“He's got a point,” Barry helpfully adds, eyes never moving from the screen as he continues to mow enemies down effortlessly even without Danny or Ross's help.  
  
There's that little churning feeling in the base of Ross's stomach that he always gets when he's half-mad half-turned-on by Danny being a general ass, and he's never really known exactly how to deal with it, so he finally just scoffs and uncurls his legs from the pretzel-shape he's been sitting in to get up. “I hate you.”  
  
“Oh, I feel _so bad_ about-”  
  
“Fuck!” Wasn't really counting on his legs being asleep and making him faceplant on the floor, but it happens, and it's really no surprise now that Ross looks back on it. “Oh my God, I can't feel my legs.” And he flops over onto his back, waves an accusing finger at Danny. “See what you did! Asshole!”  
  
“Oh!” Danny tosses his controller now, and there's a faint huff from Barry but nothing else. “Oh, it's my fault you fell on your fucking stupid face 'cuz you don't know how to sit, okay! Yeah, I can totally see where that's coming from!”  
  
“Shut up!” He waves his hand desperately. “Help me up, you dick!”  
  
“Nah, fuck you. I'm gonna go help your wife.” He tries to step over Ross. “'Cuz at least Holly- hey!” Ross grabs one of his legs just like he intended to, and since Danny's a loser who can barely stand on two feet much less one it only takes a quick jerk before he's toppling over too.  
  
He maybe didn't plan this well because Danny's elbow is suddenly stabbing into his stomach, and his hair's all in his face and _even in his mouth UGH_ and yeah, okay, he didn't actually plan anything at all, that's supposed to be _Holly's_ job, and that's all it takes for him to go straight to blaming Holly for everything.  
  
“You're such a fucking dick, Ross,” Dan hisses, and that full second Ross spent blaming Holly was apparently enough of a distraction for Danny to get on his hands and knees and push Ross into the carpet with two hands on his shoulders. “I'm gonna make you regret that.”  
  
Everything's funneled down to the distracting little thing that is Danny holding him down, even though he hasn't gone so far as to straddle him or anything, and he's still smirking, still has those twinkling eyes, so it takes Ross a second before he weakly replies “Oh yeah? How's that?”  
  
And Danny leans down an inch more and drops his voice and murmurs “I'm eating your piece of the cake.” And then he's hopping up and strolling out of the room, leaving Ross lost in that little funnel of distraction.  
  
It takes him a few seconds of staring at the ceiling before he realizes Barry hasn't even acknowledged the situation at all, that the only sign of him being in the room is the still constant sound of dying enemies and softly clicking buttons, so Ross suddenly sits straight up, points at him. “Name an FPS, 'cuz I'm gonna kick your ass in it.”  
  
“Bored already?” Barry asks, slouching a little more into the couch. “Wow, what a change.”  
  
“Shut up, Barry, I'm gonna annihilate you and that's all there is to it, let's fucking do this.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
There's about twenty minutes of him taking out all his annoyance and aggression on Barry and the fourteen other random people they were thrown into a match with before his phone vibrates again. Barry gets a headshot on him the second he looks where it ended up on the floor - “Fuck!” - and since he's got a few seconds before he can respawn he goes ahead and flops on his belly on the couch, scoops it up, and opens the text.  
  
His dear darling wife again. _'Think you can be sneaky? Come try.'_  
  
He stares at the text for a few seconds before he scrambles to his feet. “Bet you can't keep me from dying for five minutes while I take a shit.”  
  
“You're on.” Barry immediately turns his sniper rifle on everybody approaching Ross's respawn point, and he's good to go for at least ten minutes at the least until he gets bored of how no doubt everybody is easy for him to kill, the silent assassin that he is.  
  
He's careful to shut the door behind him in case Barry comes looking for him – it's squeaky, he'll hear him from like three rooms away – and sneaks as best as he can, which isn't all that well, to the kitchen doorway, where he presses himself back against the wall and listens to Holly and Danny laugh.  
  
There's this fun little thing about Ross where he's pretty sure that everybody on the Internet hates him because they think he's annoying and doesn't give a shit about it. Well, honestly, they've got it pretty flat wrong. He's painfully aware of everything about him that's annoying or childish or petty, and one of those is right here: he hates that he's childish enough that he's jealous over the fact that Holly is making Danny laugh right now instead of him. And call him crazy, but he hates it even more that he's one hundred percent aware of the fact that he knows the quickest way for he himself to make Danny laugh is to do something stupid or shit on himself, and meanwhile Holly can just say something clever or whatever and get the exact same effect.  
  
Honestly, she's his best friend in every way, but he still feels that jealousy wrap all around him, and that's all it takes for him to thud his head back against the wall and huff out a sigh and close his eyes as he forces himself to try to listen in.  
  
“Wanna try some?” Holly asks.  
  
“Sure, why not?” There's a moment of metal clinking against metal before Danny's making an appreciative groan. “Okay, yes, amazing, goddamn, what did you do to it?”  
  
“Eh, Ross started it, I Googled what kind of herbs can make some storebought spaghetti sauce better...did it work, then?”  
  
“Absolutely incredible. Fucking Christ, I'm gonna get a boner from this sauce alone.”  
  
Holly laughs again, that warm genuine laugh that made Ross fall in love with her in the first place. “Is that an actual thing, do you think? Tomatosexual?”  
  
“I think I saw that on Yahoo! Answers once. “Help I got my dick stuck in can of tomato sauce, how do I get it out before my mom comes home?”  
  
“More like you posted it.”  
  
“Ha! Nah, that wasn't me. My tastes run a little higher than pasta, thank you very much.”  
  
“Oh, but you _did_ post something like that on Yahoo! Answers?” Ross hears Holly starting to spoon out the pasta, opening the oven to get the garlic bread, all that fun stuff, and he's so tempted to peek around the corner, to put faces to the voices, but no, he's nowhere near that sneaky, and the kitchen island faces the doorway anyway. “Why am I not surprised?”  
  
“Well, y'know...sometimes you have questions, sometimes you need answers...”  
  
Ross recognizes Danny's tone of voice in a second. It matches when he's Grumping, when he and Arin are taking legitimate events and playing them up like crazy for the audience. He thinks about the fact that Arin and Danny were due to film something today before Arin took Suzy out on the town, wonders if Dan's still riding the high from it all. Holly makes an inquisitive sound. “So not pasta sauce. What sexual thing were you trying to figure out, then? Unicorns. It's probably unicorns. They show up so often in NSP videos that it's gotta be them.”  
  
“Are you suggesting that I'm dressing Barry up as a unicorn for hours upon hours just for my own sexual pleasure?” Danny asks, obviously amused.  
  
“Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm right, aren't I?”  
  
“You're so wrong, sorry.”  
  
“Dammit.” Holly chuckles.  
  
“Pretty close on the mythological beasts thing, though.”  
  
“Seriously? C'mon, Danny, fess up, you've got me super curious now.”  
  
“Ah...” He chuckles, the distracted sort of sound he makes when he's trying to figure out exactly how much of this he's going to regret. “...'How do I get my girlfriend to dress up as a mermaid?'”  
  
“Are you fucking serious?!” This time Holly barks a shocked, loud laugh that makes Danny reply right back with one, and Ross is covering his mouth with both hands. “You actually asked that?”  
  
“Okay, look, it was a joke! Apparently I said something like that when I was like super fucking high one time with my bros, and they thought it was so funny they put it up just to see what people would say back.”  
  
“Sir Daniel Avidan, are you attracted to mermaids?”  
  
“Stoooop...”  
  
“Do you jack off to Ariel or-”  
  
“Oh my God, can we maybe not go there, I've definitely already went down that comedic path and it did _not_ end well for me.”  
  
“Sorry, I just...” She snorts again. “You can't be serious.”  
  
“I don't know, there's just something hot about them, okay!” And he may still be chuckling, but he sounds completely flabbergasted at the same time, and Ross totally gets that, figures Danny's getting the whole 'Wow this is weird why am I confessing this to you' thing that Ross used to get all the time back when he first started to get to know Holly. She has that effect on people somehow. “Like, yeah, sirens will kill you dead, but mermaids are actually pretty nice and stuff, right?”  
  
“Is it the whole seashell boob thing? Is that it?”  
  
“No, it's not even, like...”  
  
“...is it the tail?”  
  
“It's just the whole picture. There's something really gorgeous and hot about these sort of...otherworldly creatures that live on this whole different plane from you, and I really always...wanted to know like what their tails felt like – you know, scaley or slimy or what – and...”  
  
“So this isn't just a mermaid thing, this is a whole _merpeople_ thing instead?”  
  
“I mean...”  
  
“I'm kind of surprised, honestly. Figured if it's a fetish, it's gonna be all about the boobs and stuff since it's, what, kind of hard to have sex with something with no vagina or whatever?”  
  
“Nah, it's seriously just everything. I dunno. I can't explain it.”  
  
“So if some boobless dude swam up to you in a mertail you'd still spike a boner?”  
  
He's silent. And that's when Ross just about rips a hole through the wall to hear all the better.  
  
“...Danny?”  
  
“Well, I mean...”  
  
More silence. Ross scrabbles at the wall behind him anxiously, thankful _he_ can barely hear the sound much less anybody in the kitchen, and all he knows is how quickly his thoughts are flying left and right. _She can't be right, she can't fucking be right, it's impossible._  
  
And then Danny chuckles, and just like that everything is gone, all the tension that was starting to build and all his suspicions. “They'd still have a mouth, wouldn't they?”  
  
And Holly is just as quick on the uptake, laughs along with him. “Too true. Hey, do me a solid, go get Barry and Ross? Think the food's gonna get cold super fast.”  
  
Shit shit shit, she's supposed to give him more time than that, goddammit! He's hurrying away as silently as he can when he hears Holly say one last thing. “Hey, Dan? You know what's awesome? Talking with you. We should totally do it more often.”  
  
“What, you wait until I'm gone from Maker Studios before you wanna talk about our feelings?” Danny asks, and Ross can hear the ear-to-ear grin. “All right, cool. Sounds good.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
Dinner's as easy as it should be, all of them building off of each other to new heights, chatting about what's been going on since they were all in the studio. Most of the focus is on Holly, honestly – Barry and Danny haven't gotten to hear in-depth all of her recent projects, and Ross basically preens at the table as she talks, stares at her with the sort of open admiration he feels for her every time she starts talking about how exactly she is going to construct the elaborate things she envisions.  
  
Honestly? He's sort of shit at it all. Yeah, he can draw, he can animate, he can color, whatever, but the things she makes are otherworldly compared to what he does. Everything she makes is positively beautiful.  
  
They don't hang out for long after they eat. Barry's more than a little antsy about being away from editing when he's still got a shit ton to do, and Danny probably just wants to sleep more, the lazy bastard, but Holly's barely got the door closed behind them before she presses back against it, pins Ross with her eyes. “I have an idea already.”  
  
“Dude.” He shakes his head. “He didn't even like say he's into guys or something, you can't just ambush him like that.”  
  
“Sure I can.” She's completely unrepentant, like forcibly trying to drag guys from the closet is something she gets her kicks from. “Anyway, didn't he already basically say it? Didn't you hear him?”  
  
“I didn't hear anything about him wanting to suck a cock, so-”  
  
“No. Idiot.” She lightly cuffs him upside the head, and he winces and gives the appropriate squeaking sound in response even as she soothes the brief pain away with a gentle rub of his crown. “He said he didn't give a shit, didn't he? That all that mattered was the tail?”  
  
He stares down at her for a moment before he narrows his eyes in thought, tilts his head a bit to the side. “...you're not gonna...”  
  
“Oh, I am.”  
  
“Can you even do that?”  
  
She looks offended. “Fuck you, I can do anything. Just gotta do some measuring, figure out how to make it waterproof...”  
  
“You're gonna make me a fucking mertail?”  
  
“Well, other people have done that, haven't they? Haven't you seen Tumblr? Pretty sure it made the rounds a little while back.”  
  
“Yeah, except we follow extremely different people. Are you serious?”  
  
“Yeah, look.” She pulls out her phone, does some Googling and some scrolling, and then she's thrusting the phone in his face. “See?”  
  
It's definitely been done before. He gently takes it from her hand when she offers it, starts zooming in on the pictures, studying the models that are swimming underwater with them. “...and you think you could do that?”  
  
She shrugs. “Be a challenge, wouldn't it? You and I both know how much I love those.”  
  
She somehow got him to propose to her even without a lick of sexual attraction to her. He's pretty sure she thrives on those challenges. The thing is, though, he's never regretted marrying her either, not really – her companionship and love is way too important to him – and so he somehow distantly knows he wouldn't regret this either.  
  
“...you and I both know it's not gonna work, though, right?” he asks softly.  
  
Holly just grins at him, takes the phone back and puts it away. “But what if it does?”  
  
He looks away immediately, feels his hands curl into fists, and he hesitates only for a moment before he lets his feet carry him to the bedroom. Holly follows relatively close behind. “But it won't.”  
  
“But it _could._ ”  
  
“Holly.” He scoffs a little, turns to walk backward through the bedroom door so he can see her confused face. “You know what I'm like.”  
  
“Uh, yeah, you're the guy I fell in love with and decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, that's definitely a thing that happened. I think I know what Danny'd be getting into.”  
  
“And you really think he'd wanna fuck me?”  
  
“Ross.” She smiles. “I think he likes you enough that he'd be pretty hard-pressed to stop.”  
  
Now _that's_ something he hasn't really thought about in depth, a Danny who'd want to fuck him multiple times, not just once. Who might wanna make it a thing. A...relationship? No, thinking about it like that is weird, especially when he's got Holly, when she's just about everything he needs in the world.  
  
It's less that he wants to date Dan...and more that he wants everything they have right now, but with a topping of sex.  
  
He sits down with a huff, immediately pulls his legs to his chest and wraps his arms around them. “That's not...exactly what I'm looking for, though.”  
  
“What, you just wanna sleep with him, that's it?”  
  
“What, you think that's bad?”  
  
“No, just...” She shakes her head. “Thought you'd want something else, for some reason. Something like...”  
  
“Like what we have?”  
  
“Well.” She sits next to him, leans into his shoulder. “When we first started talking about this, didn't you ask if I was regretting anything? I sort of figured that meant _you_ were, you know? That you...wanted what we have, but with him, and with some sex too, and I just-”  
  
“Holly.” He kisses the top of her head, breathes in the scent of her shampoo. “I don't want anything here to change. I never have, and I never will. You know what I did when I married you? I actually, you know, made a fucking vow? And it was about me sticking with you until I'm dead, yeah? Or, uh, you're dead, whichever comes first, I guess, but the _point_ is we're both here and neither of us is dead, so we're married, and that's how it's gonna stay, cool?”  
  
She chuckles, but she nods, turning her head to gently grab his chin and pull him in for a soft kiss. “Okay. Thank you.”  
  
“No problem.” There's another long moment before he brushes his nose against her gently, and she hums in question. “Why are you, uh...actually okay with me having sex with somebody, by the way? Like, this whole thing was kind of a joke to me, but now you're actually, what, wanting to make it happen, and...?”  
  
She shrugs. “It's important to you, and it's something I couldn't give you even if I didn't think it was icky and gross because you wouldn't be into it from me. So if I can give you some other way to be happy...why wouldn't I?”  
  
He stares at her with a slow smile before kissing her again. “You're perfect, you know that?”  
  
“You too! So we're gonna find you somebody else who can appreciate it, even if Danny isn't that guy.”  
  
“I can't believe you're actually gonna try this.”  
  
“You shouldn't be surprised. And it's gonna happen. Oh, it'll happen.”  
  
He flops back on the bed, pulls her down with him and guides her head to lay on his chest. “What color's it gonna be?”  
  
“Duh. Blue, to match your eyes and his unitard.”  
  
“Jesus Christ, Holly.”  
  
She laughs. “Too much? Because, you know, I was gonna put a big red star on it and-”  
  
“All right, that's enough brainstorming for tonight!”  
  
“You're no fun.”  
  
“I have rare moments of sanity,” he says dryly with a smirk, and her eyes widen in mock surprise. “And one of those is that I wanna seduce the guy, not make him laugh himself to death.”  
  
“We'll make it happen.”  
  
“We'll see.”  
  
  
~~  
  
  
“I look like an idiot.”  
  
“You do not! You look great!”  
  
Ross considers himself in the mirror, tries to get used to the weird feeling of wiggling around in a long mertail. He touches the scales on it, blinks at the glitter that covers his fingers as he does so. “This is gonna make our pool look like shit.”  
  
“No, you know what it's gonna do?” Holly leans close to his ear and whispers. “Not go in the pool. Ever.”  
  
He cocks a brow, looks at her. “What, I'm supposed to seduce a dude with a mermaid fetish without ever once being in the water? You really think that's gonna happen?”  
  
“What I think...is that you're really close to trying too hard. Plus I don't actually think it's a fetish.” She walks around behind him, pulls gently at the waistband before she secures it a little tighter, and he feels the instinctive urge to suck in his stomach even more from the unfamiliar feeling of something clinging to him that tightly. “I think it's moreso him just...thinking that they're really beautiful creatures and ideas. I don't know, maybe they symbolize some kind of freedom to him, maybe he really wants to get his hands on it or something.”  
  
“Or maybe you're full of shit and he just wants to fuck a mermaid.”  
  
“That too,” she says with a grin. “Either way, you're bound to get his attention, aren't you?”  
  
“Yeah, and he'll laugh until he bursts a fucking lung.”  
  
“Or...he'll pop a boner. And you'll be right there to take care of it, won't you?”  
  
Ross runs a hand absently over his stomach through his t-shirt, frowns down at the tail. That was something he didn't consider, exactly, just how comfortable it would be to get hard with something this confining locked around him. He says a silent prayer of thanks that Holly made it just spacious enough for him to wear a pair of his tiniest boxer briefs under them – just the thought of the chafing that might've happened otherwise makes him wince – but yeah, that's about it. “...Holly, it can go wrong in so many ways, and I just-”  
  
“You're not backing out of this now,” she whispers, locking her arms around him and resting her chin on his shoulder. “There's three days left in our bet, and if you end up backing out of it today, you win by default, and I'm not into that, okay? I want a fighting chance, at least.”  
  
He meets her eyes in the mirror, licks his lips. “What if I'm scared?”  
  
“You're scared of a lot of things.” She smiles. “It never stopped you before.”  
  
It has, though. She knows all about the things it stopped, like the fact that she's here now by his side as his wife rather than just a best friend. He holds her eyes for a long few seconds before he sighs, looks away. “All right. Okay, fine, I'll try it.”  
  
“Atta boy.”  
  
“I'm probably gonna trip and fall on my face.”  
  
“Yeah, probably.” She tugs at his shirt. “C'mon, take this off, you haven't even seen the full effect yet.”  
  
“I hate you.” But he does. He works the shirt over his head, purposely looking off to the side, until he hears her giggle when he tosses it aside and feels some acid in his stomach. “Full effect, huh?”  
  
“Just look at yourself, Ross,” she murmurs, her arms pulling a little shiver from him this time when she embraces him and tucks her chin over his shoulder. “Just...c'mon, do it.”  
  
He glances up tentatively, already reaching to rub the back of his neck sheepishly, but he freezes the second his hand is there, the second everything about himself sets a little firmer into place. He studies himself as objectively as he can manage, biting his bottom lip, seeing the slenderness of his torso, the faint trail of hair on his stomach feeding into the tail, the way the scales definitely make his eyes pop.  
  
He takes a deep breath and then shoots it out all at once. “I look like a fucking twink.”  
  
Holly bursts out laughing, buries her eyes in his shoulder before she breaks away from him, takes his hand. “I didn't say it. You did. Just remember that. C'mon, let's get you outside, he'll be here in ten.”  
  
Ten minutes. Jesus. His stomach curls up, and he feels the quiet panic start, but then she squeezes his hand and he lets it all out in another sigh, feels himself settle into the acting arena, the Steam-Training arena, where he's probably gonna screw up epically and it's just gonna be hilarious, even if he hates it with a passion at the time.  
  
As they carefully make their way out to the back patio – or waddle, in Ross's case – he considers not for the first time exactly how this is going to go. He's seen enough pornos to know how the fantasy is painted, but this isn't a fantasy, this is real life here, and real life has a tendency to screw up and kick him in the face. He gets a few lucky breaks along the way – Arin, Holly, this entire amazing fucking job thing that he still wakes up sometimes thinking it's just a cool dream – and that's what he's supposed to cling to when things go downhill.  
  
They step outside and the smell of chlorine hits him right in the face, makes him suck in a quick breath. “Okay, so what am I doing right now?”  
  
Holly looks at him with a frown and a furrowed brow. “You're asking the asexual this...why?”  
  
“No, I mean, just...a-am I playing it cool, or am I-”  
  
“You're being yourself.” She helps him sit right at the edge of the pool. “Except without the whole 'accidentally fall in the pool and ruin all my hard work' thing.”  
  
“That doesn't...” He huffs out a petulant sigh, pats his bare hands on the bumpy edge a few times with restless energy. “Holly...” His voice gets quieter, a little weaker, and he winces from it but he can't do anything to change it. “...I really like him. A-and if I screw this up, like...what if he doesn't talk to me anymore? What if he thinks I'm just a piece of shit?”  
  
“Ross.” She's soft too, reaching to brush his hair out of his eyes, and he leans into the touch with a little sigh. “Danny. Loves. You. To death. If he's not into you? If I'm somehow magically wrong about this whole thing? Then it's okay. Because he's still gonna be your friend. He's still gonna do your show with you. He's still gonna joke with you and laugh with you and say 'Goddammit Ross' every five minutes, and that's how it's gonna stay, because guess what? You're irreplaceable. I think he would've strangled anybody else by now if they pulled half the shit you do, but you're just...you're amazing, okay? And he knows that. And he likes you. And everything's gonna be okay.”  
  
“But what if it's not?”  
  
She catches him gently by the chin, turns his face to look her straight in the eye. “Then I'll beat the ever-loving shit out of him.”  
  
He smiles at that, leans forward to touch their foreheads together. “Mean it?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Cool. Thanks.”  
  
“Anytime.” She kisses him, then, and hops to her feet. “He'll come around back, okay?”  
  
“Yeah.” There's an unspoken rule for their friends that if they ring the doorbell and nobody answers within thirty seconds or so, they're allowed to just come through the back gate and in the patio door. Sometimes either of them are way too hard at work or on a deadline to spare even the minute it takes to come let somebody in, after all.  
  
Holly smooths his hair one last time with a smile before heading toward the door. “Make sure the neighbors don't hear him scream.”  
  
“Shut! Up!”  
  
Her musical laugh gets cut off when she shuts the patio door, and Ross is left to his own devices.  
  
He's never been very good at staying still. He stares into the pool curiously for a few moments, reaches down to run his fingers gently through the water's surface and forgets to feel bad when the glitter on his fingers spreads every which way. He's entranced by it, and that takes a minute or so of focus, just watching how the sun glints even harder now that there's twice the amount of things to sparkle off of, not just water.  
  
But then he's feeling that anxious thoughtfulness come back in full force and he sighs, laying back against the edge of the pool and staring up at the clouds. He really wants to jiggle one of his legs to let out some of that energy, but no, they're pretty tightly contained right now, and the effort it would take to make it happen is just too much at the moment. So he watches the sky. Tries not to think about Danny walking around and seeing Ross laid out and laughing at him because he looks really stupid and definitely not an object of sexual desire at all.  
  
He gently traces the edge of his hand up and down his stomach, and the motion's soothing, sort of like when Holly rubs his back or something, so he keeps at it, softer, harder, sometimes a tickling edge to it. It's something new, something to focus on.  
  
He's focusing on it and the sky so intently that he's caught by surprise when the gate door swings open and Danny takes one step into the patio before he comes to a dead stop.  
  
He doesn't immediately just bend over and start cackling, so there's that. He actually stares at Ross with a completely straight face for a full two seconds, enough time for Ross to lean up a bit to secure himself on his elbows and stare right back at him, before Dan chuckles, just a soft little laugh as he closes the gate and leans back against the door. “What the fuck, Ross?”  
  
“What?” he asks, already hearing his voice crack a little bit on that one word. He smiles at him on instinct, thinks it probably looks a little crooked and stupid, but hey, at least he's trying.  
  
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Danny's still grinning from ear-to-ear, flicking his eyes over Ross, lingering on the tail like he's trying to analyze it.  
  
“Oh, this?” Yeah, super casual, like he just decides to flop around in a mertail every day for no reason. “Holly made it. Pretty cool, isn't it?”  
  
“I figured she made it, yeah, what, you're just gonna go out and buy one of these for shits and giggles? Jesus fuck.” Danny looks a little tentative, but he does start walking toward him, head cocked to the side, eyes still pinned to the tail. “Looks like her work too. What I wanna know is why you're wearing it, exactly?”  
  
He hadn't thought out a script for this. Ross blinks, stares at him blankly for a second before he says the first thing that comes to mind. “...test run.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Yeah, like...she wants to make sure it'll work with her client, so-”  
  
“This isn't for a client, Ross,” Danny says softly, all teasing and playful as he comes all the closer, and Ross starts to fidget again, wiggles around a bit. “It fits you like a fucking glove, like...” He trails off when he sits on the pool chair next to him, and this time his eyes are definitely studying the fit around his hips specifically. Ross wiggles one last time, a little slower, and Danny bites his bottom lip as he chuckles again and shakes his head. “Why. The fuck. Are you wearing that?” He flicks his eyes up to Ross's, and he looks amused, yeah, but also really...hesitant?  
  
Yeah, okay, Ross definitely didn't expect to see that.  
  
“Uh.” Ross clears his throat, narrows his eyes a little, tries to find the right answer, because he's sure as fuck not telling the truth. “...Holly...made it for me. So I'm...wearing it.”  
  
“That's not what I'm fucking asking, Ross.”  
  
“That's exactly what you asked!” His voice definitely cracks this time, and he tries to pretend he doesn't care.  
  
“No, what I meant was-”  
  
“If that's not what you meant, why don't you just ask what you mean!” Okay, this is definitely not the way this is supposed to be going, because he's starting to instinctively goad Danny into a fight because that's what they do, they banter, they paw and scratch at each other like they hate each other, but that's not exactly seductive or sexy, is it, so why the hell is he doing it? But it's like a train going downhill with no breaks, and Ross can just see it, can almost trace out the path straight to _'Goddammit Ross'_ before Danny gets up and goes inside and Ross wins the bet and doesn't sleep at all tonight because just closing his eyes will bring up that vibrant mental picture of how epically he fucked up and how much better it could've gone if he wasn't just a colossal failure.  
  
“Oh my God, will you shut up for two seconds, Jesus Christ!” Danny's still smiling at him, but Ross sort of wonders if it's a fake smile, one that he puts on because he doesn't want things to get awkward or whatever. “It just seems like...”  
  
The silence starts to stretch out, so Ross shifts a little to the side, rocks his hips to angle the tail and study it. “I mean, I think it looks pretty damn good and all.”  
  
Danny makes a noncommittal sound before he waves vaguely in the air. “Did you, uh...did you ask her to make it for you?”  
  
“Nah, it was her idea.”  
  
Danny's dead silent, and Ross realizes that yeah, he fucked up, but not in a way that he actually saw coming, and that's what he gets for speaking without thinking all the time, isn't it? “...it was.”  
  
“...yeah?” He's a little weaker now. But he doesn't know how to think before he speaks, God, he never learned, he's twenty-seven years old right now, he can't learn shit like that now, he lost his chance.  
  
“Cool.” He stands up quickly. “All right.”  
  
Ross sits up fully, eyes wide. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Inside.” He thumbs back toward the door. “Wanna talk to Holly for a sec, since she asked me to come over and all, figure it's gotta be important, you know.”  
  
“She's, uh. She's busy.”  
  
“Cool. I can wait while she finishes up.”  
  
He's halfway to the door and Ross can't even stand up without fucking help. “Dan, wait!”  
  
He looks at him, cocks a brow. “Yeah, Ross, what is it?”  
  
And then they're just staring at each other, and Ross can't read him from this far away, always sucked at that anyway when he was growing up, but he's pretty sure what he sees now is just...nothing relevant to him. He didn't do anything for him. This was a fucking dumb idea, okay, yeah, he knew it, cool. “No, it's fine,” he finally says, the words pouring out super fast, “go ahead, it was stupid, just go on in, I'll just be out here, I'll come in later, it's fine.” And he rocks onto his other side as he says this, stares down at the water as he sucks in a quiet breath and whispers the one thing rattling around in his head: “I'm a stupid piece of shit.”  
  
He hears footsteps again, but he's probably going crazy because he's pretty sure they're coming closer. But he's not gonna look. Nope. And then he hears the seat squeak as it sinks it a little and Ross stiffens, feels all his muscles strain. “...Ross?”  
  
“What.”  
  
“Dude, look at me.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Goddammit, Ross, are you seriously just sitting here pouting like a kid just because I'm not gonna sit out here and talk to you? Because you don't even know what's going on right now.”  
  
“I totally know what's going on.” That's probably not helping him apparently pout like a kid, but goddammit, he doesn't care. “Just go.”  
  
“No, you don't-”  
  
“You're pissed at Holly.”  
  
Dan's quiet for a second, sorting through that. “Yeah, but you don't know why.”  
  
“Of course I fucking know why, and you know what? You're wrong. You're super fucking wrong.”  
  
“Ross-”  
  
“It was my idea, you idiot!” He rolls back onto his elbows and glares at Danny, and Dan actually leans back a little, eyes wide. “So don't go fucking taking shit out on my wife when I'm the one you're really pissed at!”  
  
“Okay, I wasn't mad at you before, but now you're starting to piss me off, yeah.”  
  
“It. Was my. Idea.”  
  
Danny leans forward again, and yeah, now he's mad, and good, because Ross would rather have that than him just walk away silently and stoically like nothing happened. “What was?”  
  
“The tail.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I'm a big fucking closeted fag. What else?”  
  
And this time Danny just stares at him, even flinches as the slur flies through the air, and they sit there in silence for a good few seconds before Dan shakes his head. “Ross, that's a really fucking bad joke.”  
  
“Yeah, except it's not a joke. You know what's a joke?” He sits up all the more, pushes himself up by his hands and sits there on his ass with his face just a few inches from Danny's where he's slouching, and he lets it pour out. “My fucking life. My fucking sexuality. Every second of it. You know what I mean? God, what am I kidding.”  
  
Danny keeps shaking his head, wrinkling his brow. “You're married to Holly.”  
  
“What's your point?”  
  
“If you're...if you were gay, then-”  
  
“Homosexual,” he interrupts. “Biromantic. Means yeah, okay, sex with guys is good, but I-”  
  
“I know what it means, Ross.”  
  
He didn't expect that. He actually stutters to a halt, cocks his head to the side. “Seriously?”  
  
It's as if Danny thinks he made a mistake by saying it. He looks away, eyes jumping all over the ground, mouth opening and closing a few times. “...uh, yeah, I, uh. I know. I did some research, some...look, that's not important, I'm still really fucking confused.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because you're saying a lot of shit that doesn't make a lot of sense, and you look like you're about to hyperventilate or something – seriously, I didn't even know your face could turn that red.”  
  
He touches his cheek a little self-consciously, scowls as he looks away, wishes his hair was longer so that it could hide his face or something.  
  
When Ross doesn't respond, Danny seems to take it as a sign that he's gonna have to get him to talk somehow. “...so you're gay.”  
  
“...yeah.”  
  
“Why don't I believe you?”  
  
He glares up at him. “I don't know, why don't you?”  
  
“Jesus, Ross, why are you getting angry at me? Chill out, I'm just trying to figure all this out.”  
  
“Well, it's not a joke. It's not a lie. And just because I'm married to a girl it doesn't mean you should decide I'm straight or something, you know.”  
  
“No, trust me, I know, I just...okay, let's back up a little. Why did you choose to marry Holly if you're gay instead of trying to have something serious with a dude?”  
  
That's much more complicated. Much more painful. Ross can't even hold onto the tendrils of anger when Danny asks that, feels himself melt a little into the ground, and he flops the tail once, a solid attempt to burn out some of that anxiety again. “...you ever get bullied in school, Danny?”  
  
He shrugs. “Yeah, a little.”  
  
“What for?”  
  
He scoffs. “You saw my high school prom picture. What do you think?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“...why, Ross?”  
  
He rolls onto his stomach, stares down at the white pool border. “...I got bullied for being a fag before I even really knew what sex or sexuality was.”  
  
Dan is silent.  
  
“It was some...I don't know, these older kids or whatever. They took one look at me, decided I was gay, and then it was off to the races, right? And God, I was like...ten years old, whatever, and it _never. Stopped._ I don't know if they got off on it or what, but every single day I was getting slammed into lockers, pushed around, kicked, I...I don't even know what, I just...”  
  
“Jesus, Ross,” Danny whispers.  
  
“No, you know what's funny? I was like two years away from graduating, and one of them actually cornered me in the locker room one day. And I sort of...accidentally figured out that half the reason he was giving me shit was completely because he thought I was hot.” He chuckles dryly. “Amazing, right? Like, apparently I was such a pretty little boy that he was questioning everything about himself, and...well.”  
  
“...did...did he-”  
  
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “He didn't even hit me, just said some shit, but I saw...well, anyway.” He tents his hands, rests his chin on the back of them. “You really think I'm gonna go diving out of the closet and prove them all right? You really think I was gonna be okay with that?”  
  
“But you...came over here, and they were all left in Australia, right? Couldn't you just-”  
  
“Tell me why you think I had night terrors,” he murmurs, glancing up at him. “Tell me I could just leave all that shit in Perth where it belonged. Tell me it was that easy when I'd been dealing with it for almost fifteen years at the time.”  
  
Danny keeps his tented hands pressed to his lips, eyes never moving from him. “...so you met Holly.”  
  
“And she gave a shit.”  
  
“And you fell in love with her?”  
  
“Hell yeah.”  
  
He seems to have a thought, then, stiffens a little. “I mean, does she know you're gay, or-”  
  
“Jesus, she and Arin are the only people that know, not even my own parents.” He hesitates. “And...and you now too, I guess.”  
  
Danny flicks his eyes over Ross's tail again, frowning in thought. “...so you're gay.”  
  
“...yeah?”  
  
“And when your wife found out...that I had a thing for...” He chuckles suddenly, covers his eyes for just a moment before raking his hands through his hair. “Jesus Christ, I've gotta be getting something wrong.”  
  
“What exactly do you think you're getting wrong?” Ross asks softly, because they might as well have this out here and now, not hiding in the background where they never talk about it and it starts to get awkward.  
  
Danny stares down at his feet, shaking his head again. “I told her about the mermaid thing, I didn't tell her the rest, I don't...know how she figured it out, but it's freaking me out.”  
  
Okay, that's a different turn. Ross wrinkles his brow. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“The whole sexuality thing, I just...I told Barry, but I didn't think they talked, or- shit, did Barry tell you, is that it?”  
  
“The sexuality thing.”  
  
“Of course he told you. Shit. Okay, so-”  
  
“I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”  
  
Danny flashes his eyes up, wide and surprised.  
  
“So maybe...you should tell me what it's about?”  
  
It's Danny's turn to look like a fish with that whole mouth nonsense thing. He recovers a little faster than Ross. “I, uh...I learned a thing about myself. Or, no, I guess I sort of...okay, I always knew it, but I finally found out what it's called? Does that make sense?”  
  
“I guess? What was it?”  
  
Danny considers. Then he points at Ross. “Biromantic homosexual.” And points at himself. “Pansexual.”  
  
The familiarity of the term makes Ross perk up a little. “Seriously?”  
  
“Seriously.”  
  
“You're not just fucking around with me.”  
  
“Nah, bruh, I really...yeah, that's a thing.”  
  
Ross shakes his head this time. “You're the most no homo guy I've ever met in my life.”  
  
“What, on our shows?” He grins. “You're really... _really_ good at coming across as straight too, just so you know. What's it called? Passing for straight, something?”  
  
He's never thought about it like that. He rolls onto his back again, lets out a deep breath he didn't realize he was holding. “I still don't...”  
  
“My turn to share my life's story? Cool.” Dan lays back on the pool chair, stretches himself out, and he's so tall his feet still almost hang over the edge. “So I lived with like eighty-seven guys in a New York barrio, and there, uh...there was this guy, and he was really...different. Like, not in how he acted, just how he...got to me, I guess. I swear, he fucking got under my skin, and he was everywhere, and I was thinking about him all the time, and then there was this one day that we were all high out of our fucking minds and like...yeah, things happened. Oral things. It was a great time, I guess.”  
  
“Shit, Dan.” Ross can't help but laugh. “Count on you to get your dick sucked while you're high.”  
  
“Yeah, well. Wasn't bad, that's for sure.” He grins, wiggles around a little in the chair. “Probably the best head I ever got. Guy knew how to deepthroat someone like nobody's business.”  
  
“You remember it all that well when you were wasted enough to get with a guy?”  
  
“Nah, not really that time, but the other seventeen times or so when we were sober, I guess they were pretty amazing.”  
  
“No shit. Did you date him or just mess around?”  
  
And then he makes this expression, sort of uncomfortable, sort of grossed out. It's like how Holly gets on her rougher sex-repulsed days, when they'll be watching a movie and a random unnecessary sex scene will show up and she makes some excuse to leave the room for the next ten minutes. “Nah, I just...we were bros, you know? Bros that sucked each other off.”  
  
“Brojobs,” Ross offers helpfully.  
  
Danny barks a laugh. “Exactly. Bros that sucked each other off and maybe fucked sometimes, and that's just...how it was.”  
  
“And you were okay with that?”  
  
Dan glances down at him. “My longest relationship's been like...six months. I can't do that shit, it's just...it's so much. And I don't really like it. Or want it.”  
  
It takes a second for the enormity of what Danny is saying to sink down on Ross. What he's...suggesting about himself. What it could mean if... “So pansexual...”  
  
“...but aromantic.”  
  
Holy shit.  
  
Danny keeps watching him. “Do me a favor, yeah? Don't tell Arin. Or anybody, really. No, I take that back, anybody but Holly – I know you can't keep your mouth shut around her.”  
  
Ross feels the heavy sense of trust drop on him, and he welcomes it, can't help but grin like a schoolboy. “We can be stuck in the closet together.”  
  
“God, yeah, fun times.” Danny laughs a little weakly. “You're probably gonna poke me in the eye and elbow me in the stomach and kick me in the dick, sounds awesome.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
“I hate you.”  
  
“I know.” Danny's smile deepens a little, and his eyes get all lazy and languid as he watches him silently. It takes Ross a few seconds before he realizes that they're staring at each other, that he's getting little goosebumps across his skin. “You ever hook up with a guy, Ross?”  
  
“No, _hell_ no. Too scared somebody would find out.”  
  
“Huh.” He tucks his arms behind his neck, crosses his legs at the ankle, still watching ever so closely. “That's cool. I understand that. Plus, there's Holly...”  
  
Ross clears his throat. “She, uh...she wouldn't really mind if I hooked up with somebody, actually.”  
  
“Really?” He quirks a brow.  
  
“Yeah. She's pretty much the most amazing wife ever.”  
  
“I can imagine.”  
  
Silence. Ross finally looks away – it's too much for him to take, all that warmth racing through him, being at this awkward place where he doesn't know if he should push forward or backtrack.  
  
“...so Holly found out I had a thing for merpeople...”  
  
Ross holds his breath.  
  
“...and she made you a tail out of nowhere?”  
  
He holds it until the world gets a little fuzzy, and Danny doesn't break the silence, waits for Ross to shoot out the air in a rush and gasp for more. “Maybe not out of nowhere?”  
  
He hears Danny's grin even though he's not looking at him. “Tell me why, Ross.”  
  
“I don't want to.”  
  
“Do you have a thing for me, Ross?”  
  
Shiiiiiit.  
  
“Does Holly know about it?”  
  
Shitshitshit.  
  
“Is she trying to get you laid?”  
  
Ross points at him, doesn't risk looking. “You can't prove that, you don't know _shit._ ”  
  
“Uh-huh. I see.”  
  
Ross finally bites the bullet and whips his eyes over, and Danny has this lazy little smirk on his lips from where he watches him. “Don't look at me like that.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Like you're thinking of...taking me up on this.”  
  
“On _what,_ Ross?”  
  
Oh fuck, no, Danny doesn't get to play the whole coy thing, he's not gonna make Ross say everything and do all the work here. That is _totally_ not on the table. Ross sits up and pins him with his eyes. “I'm dressed in a fucking mertail. And nothing else.”  
  
That time Danny's eyes definitely shoot down Ross's torso, hover somewhere around the area of his hips.  
  
“Sort of nothing else.”  
  
Danny's really not good at hiding disappointment.  
  
“Dude, seriously, chafing.”  
  
“I get the picture.”  
  
“But yeah, I'm wearing this goddamn thing. You think merpeople are hot or whatever. Now, let me think, how exactly could the next fifteen or twenty minutes go...?”  
  
Danny bites his bottom lip, thinks for a little longer. “Y'know, I think I wanna hear you say it.”  
  
“You son of a bitch.”  
  
“No, seriously. Tell me honestly, Ross, if you had to pick any guy to hook up with, who would it be?”  
  
Ross scoots closer until he's leaning against the pool chair, chin on his wrists, taking in a slightly shaky breath. “No joke? No making fun of me because ha ha, Ross is an idiot, goddammit Ross?”  
  
Dan nods. “No jokes.”  
  
“You.”  
  
“Really?” He grins at him.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
He looks beside himself, like it's completely out of the ordinary, like Ross hasn't been playing around and flirting with him outright on camera for months now. “I just...why?”  
  
He shrugs. “You're cute. You're funny. You have like...the best fucking laugh I've ever heard, next to Holly's, and you use it ten times more than she does anyway. Your music is amazing, and it's really hot watching you perform and really get into it, and I really just...kind of...have a thing for you, you know?”  
  
This time Danny seems to hesitate, but Ross doesn't really know why. “How much of a thing?”  
  
“A...'you're really hot and sexy and I wanna know what you taste like' thing.”  
  
“That it?”  
  
He thinks he has a feeling what the issue is. “An 'I wanna hook up every once and a while maybe if we like it the first time and otherwise stay exactly like we are' thing.”  
  
“No strings? Really?”  
  
“Dude, I've got strings.” He thumbs toward the house. “I've got a fucking wife, and I love her, and that's not going anywhere.” He can't help but grin up at him again. “I just wanna suck a dick sometimes.”  
  
“Uh-huh. I see.” Danny flicks his tongue over his lips. “So, uh...turns out _I've_ got a dick.”  
  
He can't stop smiling. His jaw is going to fucking break from it. “Yeah?”  
  
“Y'know, just...” He shifts, scoots a little closer to the edge of the seat, spreads his legs to press his feet into the ground. “...in case you ever decide you really wanna do that. For real.”  
  
“Imagine that.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.”  
  
They're both playing this game, he realizes, staring at each other, grinning, waiting for one of them to give or take first. Well. Danny might have some patience to him, but Ross has never been too good at that. So he turns until he can outright shove his tail under the chair – figures he's gonna be here for a while, if things go right, so he might as well be comfy – and plants his elbows right on the thatched bottom of the chair. “Like right now?”  
  
Danny throws his head back and laughs. “Seriously, man?”  
  
“Yeah, why not?”  
  
“Uh, we're outside?”  
  
He shrugs. “Some people think that's hot. That not you, Dan? You too scared for that?”  
  
“Oh, c'mon, don't play that game with me.” He smirks, looking down at him from his far superior height in this position, and reaches out to playfully push his shoulder, and that's fine because that's totally familiar, just like their friendship always is. But all Ross really processes is the fact that his skin absolutely lights up where Danny's hand brushes over it, that he is painfully ready for this. “If anybody's the big scaredy baby here, it's you.”  
  
“Oh yeah?”  
  
“I mean, dude, what are your neighbors gonna think?”  
  
“They're gonna think,” he murmurs, sitting just a little straighter, just an inch closer, “that I'm really fucking good at giving head.”  
  
Danny flicks his eyes from Ross's gaze to his mouth and back again. And then he shrugs. “So do it.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Right now.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
“I bet.”  
  
And it's clear that Dan's just goading him, and he doesn't care – he fucking _loves_ it – so he reaches forward, presses his hand flush against Dan through his jeans, and he sucks in a sharp breath, stiffens as his lids go a little hooded, and yeah, he may not be fully hard yet, but there's definitely some chub action going on, and Ross is almost too curious, rolls his hand gently against the growing bulge with his eyes never leaving Dan's. “Right. The fuck. Now.”  
  
Silence. And then Danny nods. “All right.”  
  
Ross bites his bottom lip, loops his hands behind Danny's knees and tugs him forward until he complies, scoots right to the edge of the chair so Ross can lean forward, nose gently at the stiff denim as he squeezes Dan's legs, murmurs a content little sound. “You gonna back out of this, Danny?”  
  
“Nah,” he says, voice a little breathy.  
  
“You promise?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Okay.” He nods, rubs his temple against Danny's thigh before he flicks his eyes right up to meet his again. “Can I, uh...”  
  
“What?” Dan asks, and his fingers are just about strangling the chair frame, but maybe that's okay.  
  
“Can I...kiss you, or is that too-”  
  
Danny reaches right out and drags his fingers into Ross's hair, leaning down until he's captured his mouth, and _Jesus,_ okay, _that's_ what it feels like to kiss a dude, _shit._  
  
It's not that it's really a different thing from kissing Holly, per se – it's still a mouth moving against his, it's still warm breath brushing against his mouth during those milliseconds that they break apart before diving in again – but the way his body lights up like a bonfire, the way it goes straight to his dick and sweeps along it? Yeah, that's fucking new. Ross moans quietly, digs both hands into Danny's hair, pulls him closer if that's possible, eagerly opens his mouth wide when Danny slides his tongue forward and presses it against his lips.  
  
He's kissed a couple of girls like this in the past – even Holly – but honestly he was always scared shitless that he was gonna screw it up, and it never lasted very long anyway. Not with Dan. Dan gently explores his mouth with his tongue, slick and hot, and Ross feels his breathing speed, just about pants against him as he learns _exactly_ what he tastes like, memorizes it faster and more thoroughly than one of Ten's trademark monologues from Doctor Who.  
  
Ross is actually the one to break the kiss, tingly and aching and thoroughly overwhelmed, and he searches Danny's eyes for a moment, feels incredibly gratified when he sees everything he's feeling broadcast right back at him. “...how long's it been since somebody sucked you off?”  
  
Danny considers it, eyes going a little unfocused. “Jesus, it's been like six months.”  
  
“Was it a guy?”  
  
“Fuck no.” He shakes his head. “It's been years.”  
  
“Good.” He leans forward and starts working at Danny's belt, biting his bottom lip in complete concentration. “I'm not gonna suck at this, then.”  
  
Danny actually laughs at that, the ass, drops his hands and leans into them behind him. “You really worried about that?”  
  
He considers, glances up at him, then looks right back at his task. “N-no.”  
  
“Didn't think so.” He can try to sound casual if he wants, but he's so hard he's straining at his jeans, so whatever, Ross knows who the real winner is here. “You want some tips?”  
  
“I want you to sit back and take it,” he shoots right back, just about rips the belt and the button open, completely forgets about the zipper and pulls at the opening of his jeans for a second in frustration before he remembers and pulls it down too. “That sound good?”  
  
“You want me to be your little bitch, Ross?” Danny's grinning again, that insufferable and beautiful smile that drives him up a wall and makes him stare a little too long every time he sees it. “'Cuz it's not gonna happen.”  
  
“We'll see.” He rips the jeans down around his ankles and cups his ass, pulling him in until he's mouthing at his boxers with a muffled groan.  
  
Fuck. Okay. He breathes in, feels a shiver race down his spine, feels his own cock fucking pressing against this stupid ass mertail, but he can't help it, he's here, right here, lips against Danny's dick, nothing but a thin layer of cotton separating them, and it's so stupid because how the hell did this even happen? Why the fuck is Danny giving a quiet little shaky sigh, whispering “Fuck...” like a prayer? He tears at the waistband of the boxers and watches eagerly as his dick comes into view, and okay, yeah, he's definitely gay as a daisy, just a big dumb gay who thinks cocks are pretty, because _look at it,_ it's here, it's thick and red and full of veins, and he just...  
  
“Goddamn, Danny.”  
  
He chuckles. “You like?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
He's an overeager little kid at this point, basically flies forward and takes the head between his lips without warning, gently sucking at it, marveling at how different the skin here tastes. He wraps his hand around Danny's length, gives a little squeeze, feels it twitch in his grasp, in his _mouth,_ and he purrs a quiet “Mm- _hmm_ ” in affirmation, swirls his tongue around the head as reward.  
  
He starts gently pumping him, careful as anything, because of course he's an idiot, didn't like spit in his hand or something to get things slicked up before he started moving, but he's not gonna do it now, it'll make him look even stupider. No, he's gotta soldier on – and apparently Danny doesn't mind, because he's just making quiet noises, fingers  tightening around the rubber thatching of the chair, head tilted back and eyes closed. Yeah, he's not complaining.  
  
Ross gets the distinct feeling that this isn't supposed to be a race, but shit, he just wanna proves he can do this. He doesn't wanna keep Danny hanging on the ropes for hours begging, as nice as that mental image is. He just wants to know what his cum tastes like at this point. He wants to know how sensitive Dan is, if he wants this bad enough that he's already so jazzed up that he'll get off in minutes.  
  
So all right. Challenge accepted.  
  
He takes even more of him in his mouth, working as fast as he can to get everything as wet as possible, and okay, yeah, it's a little gross when he basically starts drooling, all his spit sliding down Danny's cock, but when it reaches his hand and the pumping becomes all the easier Danny actually bucks into his mouth a little, gives a cry that he bites back with his teeth digging into his lip, like he's suddenly aware that they're outside, that anybody could just walk by and hear this. Fuck, that's hot. Ross sucks greedily at his cock at the thought, his other fingers digging into Dan's ass so hard that they're probably leaving marks.  
  
It's when Dan threads his fingers ever so gently in Ross's hair that he stiffens a little, and when he gives a little direction to it, trying to coax Ross to bob up and down, he lashes out, grabs Dan's wrists and pins them to the chair with his eyes burning into Danny's when they fly open in surprise.  
  
Dan stares at him for a second before he chuckles. “Oh, is _that_ how the game's gonna be?”  
  
Ross just grins at him as best as he can with his mouth full of cock, leaning back to press his tongue right against his slit, to taste all the bitter and salty precum that coats his tongue.  
  
“Goddammit, Ross,” he murmurs, but he gives only the tiniest bit of a fight to the hands holding his down, even sucks in a sharp breath when he can't free them right away before giving in, leaning back just a touch more.  
  
Ross goes with the direction anyway now that he's got the upper hand again, starts sucking at Danny's length as he moves further down, then up, then down again, over and over, listening to Danny's breathing get all the more erratic, feeling every quiet little curse he lets fly bubble up inside him until he's quite painfully hard, can feel himself throbbing, and he finally gives a frustrated little growl, shoves one of Dan's hands under his thigh where it'll presumably stay nice and still before he sucks in his stomach, shoves his hand into the tail, under his boxers, until he purrs a moan the second he rubs at his own cock, even rocks into it a little.  
  
Danny's hips leap a little in reaction to those sounds he makes, and when he looks up again he realizes that Dan's watching Ross's hand work at himself, that his eyes are wide, his mouth wide open, and the second he notices that he's caught, meets Ross's eyes all over again, he bites his bottom lip and full-out moans. “Jesus, Ross, you look so fucking good like this.”  
  
That rankles him a little – what, he's only hot when he's got a cock in his mouth? Fuck that, he's gorgeous – but he kicks up his pace all the more, sucks like Dan's cock is a goddamn popsicle and it's a thousand degrees outside.  
  
“You're just...you're so fucking good, you know that?”  
  
He makes a soft inquisitive noise, slows for a moment.  
  
“Everything about you, just. Fuck. You're amazing.”  
  
Okay, that's...there's something incredibly freeing about hearing that right now, somehow, and maybe it's silly, but he feels all the million times he's wondered if he's just annoying somebody really fucking cool like Danny all the time, if he just puts up with him, if he hates him more than anything, just get...shoved down and locked away.  
  
And yeah, maybe it's a temporary fix...but for once he's not subconsciously worrying and posturing and making himself look as cool as he can.  
  
Because he's _amazing._  
  
Maybe he can work with that.  
  
He wants to show Danny how much that means to him, but talking about it makes him feel like an idiot, so he instead decides to suck him down, opens his mouth as wide as he can and carefully fucks his own mouth with Dan's cock, going deeper and deeper and deeper until he starts feeling a pressure in the back of his throat, and there's something amazingly powerful about that, so dizzying that his hand starts working so fast at himself that he's probably rubbing the skin of his forearm raw from how it grinds against the solid waistband of the mertail.  
  
Danny, meanwhile, he spits out a quick “The fuck?” before he barks out a laugh that twists into a moan, throws his head back. “You don't have a motherfucking gag reflex!”  
  
He sounds so shocked, but Ross just gives a little distracted shrug, so buried in the shockwaves shooting from his own cock into his spine and then out his other limbs that he can't be bothered with this obvious little factoid.  
  
“Fuck! Oh shit, Ross, fucking _shit-_ " The words sort of go away after that, get replaced with these building groans and cries that the neighbors can _definitely_ fucking hear, but Ross doesn't have time for that, just feels the cock curve and glide down the tight path of his throat, and it's weird but it's not bad, just...he swallows around it absently, and Danny just about flies off the seat he spasms so hard. There's nothing hotter than that, he decides, how lost Dan is in this, how he's about to fall apart at the seams, and it's a goddamn depth charge to his libido. Ross lets go so suddenly that he moans in surprise, shoots his other hand up from Dan's wrist and wraps it around his hip instead, digging in to try to find some leverage as his entire body rips open and gives up the ghost, he swears.  
  
He has the fleeting thought within the fathomless colors and electricity that Holly's gonna be so pissed to find this thing full of cum when Danny grabs him by the crown of his head and spasms, hips rocking flush against Ross's mouth  as he feels all the more pressure in his throat as he comes straight down it.  
  
Shit. Okay. Ross feels completely boneless all of the sudden, but he just needs to...okay. Dan flops straight back on the chair, trying to catch his breathing, and Ross slowly pulls back, watching Danny tentatively as he slips out of his mouth. It's only then that he grabs at his throat, feels the faint scratchiness there, winces and rubs a bit. “Shit, dude.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Danny sounds so dreamy and lost that Ross laughs, shakes his head. “I rock your life that hard, Sexbang?”  
  
“Shut...shut up, it's been a while, okay?” Danny waves vaguely in the air, as if he's trying to cuff Ross upside the head, and Ross just laughs again, works his own hand out of his boxers and stares at it. Eww. Okay. He starts trying to figure out the likelihood that he can get to a towel without falling over in this stupid tail when he realizes Dan's watching him a little too closely, and then Dan's leaning forward, saying “Give it here,” and grabbing his hand and – OKAY COOL, he's apparently just going to suck Ross's fingers into his mouth and just-  
  
“Ohmygod, Dan, you're gonna fucking kill me,” he stammers, and Dan just hums happily, sweeping his tongue all around Ross's fingers and hand and swallowing every little drop of cum down.  
  
Ross is grinding out the last few aftershocks that are suddenly fucking multiplied by ten thousand, thanks for that, Dan, when Danny lets his hand go, the fingers audibly making a popping noise as they slide free from his mouth, and he gasps, rests his forehead gently on the end of the chair. Danny just chuckles. “Sorry I'm not sorry.”  
  
They sit there quietly for a few seconds, regrouping, coming down, before Danny takes care of himself, setting himself back to rights. It's when he goes to stand up, though, that Ross looks up at him. “Dan?”  
  
“Mm?” He looks down at him with a smile, still completely blissed out.  
  
“You, uh...you liked the tail?”  
  
Danny's grin turns lazy and a little dark as he reaches down, kicks the chair out of the way and pulls Ross straight to his feet before kissing him warmly again, so deep that Ross can taste himself, that Danny can no doubt do the same, before whispering against his lips. “It's so fucking hot.”  
  
Ross is unsteady and still sorting through how glorious that kiss felt when he realizes that Danny is opening the patio door, and he makes a little squeaking noise, holds a hand out. “Help a brother out, Dan?”  
  
Dan looks over his shoulder with a smirk, flips him the bird, and goes waltzing inside.  
  
Son. Of. A bitch.  
  
He's lucky he's hot.


End file.
